Senior Portrait

It is hard to believe that I have my own senior to photograph this year. Shooting your own senior portraits has huge advantages including being able to take advantage of various times of the day, locations and outfits. It is also a good excuse to buy or rent various lenses to try out.

The venerable Zeiss Otus 55mm f/1.4 Lens was in my hands on this day and Brianna was looking good (I of course think she always looks good). When shooting wide aperture primes at their max apertures, there is usually a noticeable amount of vignetting. The 55mm focal length on a full frame body is best used for head-and-shoulders and wider portraits that leave the subject's face darkened relative to what is in the center of the frame (her shirt in this case).

In this example, I chose to correct the vignetting. Another option is to use a narrower aperture. Because I wanted the background blur of f/1.4, I took the former option.

Also note the camera angle and how this angle makes the subject appear.

The lighting for this portrait is natural through large windows and the shaded window in the background provides a frame for the subject.